Your Loyalty to Me

Trust me, Aria Does Not Taste Like Bee Venom

Apollo's POV

I did not know I could move so fast. Not as Lester Papadopoulos, anyway.

I bounded across the lake until I reached Aria's side. I tried desperately to shoo away the bees, but the wisps of darkness swarmed her, flying into her mouth, nose, and ears—even into her tear ducts. As a god of medicine, I would have found that fascinating if I hadn’t been so repulsed.

“Trophonius, stop it!” I pleaded.

“This is not my doing,” said the spirit. “Your friend opened her mind to the Dark Oracle. She asked questions. Now she is receiving the answers.”

“She asked no questions!”

“Oh, but she did. Mostly about you, Father. What will happen to you? Where must you go? How can she help you? These worries are foremost in her mind. Such misplaced loyalty…”

Aria began to thrash. I turned her onto her side, as one should do for someone after having a seizure. I wracked my brain. What else? Remove sharp objects from her environment….All the snakes were gone, good. Not much I could do about the bees. Her skin was cold, but I had nothing warm and dry to cover her with. Her usual scent—that faint, inexplicable aroma of vanilla—had turned dank as mildew.

“Aria,” I said. “Stay with me. Concentrate on my voice.”

Meg had reached us a little while ago, but I was too caught up trying to make sure my servant survived to notice. She crouched down beside Aria and I.

I muttered some healing chants—old curative tunes I hadn’t used in centuries. 

Before antibiotics, before aspirin, before even sterile bandages, we had songs. I was the god of both music and healing for good reason. One should never underestimate the healing power of music.

Aria’s breathing steadied, but the shadowy swarm still enveloped her, attracted to her fears and doubts like…well, like bees to pollen.

“Ahem,” Trophonius said. “So about this favour you promised—”

“Shut up!” I snapped.

In her fever, Aria murmured, “Shut up.”

I sang to Aria about her home up in Olympus, about the gods and how we all regarded her as family. I sang about the times she had with each god.

Making glassworks with Hephaestus in the middle of a fiery furnace as he had promised her.
Fighting the god of war himself for hours and hours until they both decided to call a truce. Reading in Athena's library for ages that was brimmed with books of all kinds.
Her magic lessons with Hecate and how excellently she performed in them, easily becoming the goddess' most powerful student.

But most of all, I sang about us riding the sun chariot all day and playing music, playing pranks on the rest of the gods and occasionally managing to prank Hermes himself.

"You know we all love you Aria," I promise, cradling Aria’s head in my lap. “Every one of us gods can't imagine a life without you, even Hades! Oh and Hera? Who cares about peacock, right?”

I realized I wasn’t even singing anymore. I was rambling, trying to drive off Aria’s fears with a friendly voice.

I couldn’t tell if she was hearing me. Her eyes shifted under closed lids as if she’d entered REM sleep. She wasn’t twitching and thrashing quite as much. Or was that my imagination? I was shaking from cold and fear so much myself, it was hard to be sure.

Trophonius made a sound like a steam valve opening. “She’s just fallen into a deeper trance. That’s not necessarily a good sign. She could still die.”